Everyone is born into a certain era. I wouldn't want to see anyone faced with the circumstances that prevailed at the time, when there were few or no alternatives.
Gunter GrassRead
If I were asked to think up a new name for temptation, I should recommend the word 'doorknob', because what are these protuberances put on doors for if not to tempt us.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote humorously equates everyday objects to temptation, suggesting that even mundane things can lure us in.
Gunter Grass uses humor to illustrate how temptation can take many forms, even ones as commonplace as a doorknob. By likening a doorknob to temptation, he encourages us to reflect on our everyday interactions with the objects around us, highlighting the idea that temptation is often intertwined with the allure of accessibility and ease.
Themes
TemptationHumorEveryday ObjectsAllureLife
In practice
Example use cases
In a light-hearted speech about personal struggles during a community meeting.
More from Gunter Grass
All quotes βI wept when the muse Ulla bent over me. Blinded by tears I could not prevent her from kissing me, I could not prevent the Muse from giving me that terrible kiss. All of you who have ever been kissed by the Muse will surely understand that Oskar, once branded by that kiss, was condemned to take back the drum he had rejected years before, the drum he had buried in the sand of Sapse Cemetery.
Gunter GrassRead
Today I know that all things are watching, that nothing goes unseen, that even wallpaper has a better memory than human beings.
Gunter GrassRead
I did not volunteer for the Waffen SS, but was, as were thousands of my year group, conscripted. I did not then know as a 17-year-old that it was a criminal unit. I thought it was an elite unit.
Gunter GrassRead
Art is uncompromising, and life is full of compromises.
Gunter GrassRead
If work and leisure are soon to be subordinated to this one utopian principle - absolute busyness - then utopia and melancholy will come to coincide: an age without conflict will dawn, perpetually busy - and without consciousness.
Gunter GrassRead
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